DANC­ING WITH MAIREAD

BEST FOOT FOR­WARD: Mairead Ro­nan is look­ing for­ward to tak­ing part in RTE’s ‘Danc­ing with the Stars’. She told the ‘Sun­day In­de­pen­dent’: “I love to dance and the show, so I couldn’t say no.”

MAIREAD Ro­nan has been an­nounced as the first con­tes­tant in the highly an­tic­i­pated re­turn of RTE One hit se­ries Danc­ing with the Stars.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day In­de­pen­dent, the pre­sen­ter, who gave birth to her third child in Au­gust, said: “I’m feel­ing very ner­vous, I don’t think any­one has done the show with a baby as young as Bon­nie. While I may not be in the best shape I’ve ever been, I love to dance, I love mu­sic and I love the show so I couldn’t say no.”

Ro­nan said her pri­or­ity was get­ting a wash­board stom­ach from the stren­u­ous rou­tines. “From this ex­pe­ri­ence I hope to get a six-pack,” she said. “It’s great that I’m go­ing to have some glam­our in my life. At the mo­ment I’m do­ing a lot of nappy changes and school runs, and get­ting dressed up is not my top pri­or­ity — so this will be a wel­come change.”

On want­ing to add her name to the tro­phy cabi­net, she said: “Dara [her el­dest son] is the only per­son in the house that has tro­phies at the mo­ment so I would love to have the Danc­ing with the Stars tro­phy on the man­tel­piece. It would be lovely to show him that Mommy can win things too.”

Ro­nan will take to the dance floor to bat­tle it out for the cov­eted glit­ter­ball tro­phy, fol­low­ing singer Jake Carter’s win in se­ries two.

The next celebrity dancers to join Ro­nan will be re­vealed on The Ryan Tubridy Show to­mor­row morn­ing. Mean­while, Jen­nifer Zam­par­elli and Nicky Byrne will present the new se­ries, pro­duced by Shi­nawil.

Air­ing on RTE One for 12 weeks from Sun­day, Jan­uary 6, 11 stars will pair up with pro­fes­sional dance part­ners. Also re­turn­ing this year are judges Brian Red­mond, Lo­raine Barry and Ju­lian Ben­son.